After seeing Vinnie Moore tear it up with UFO at the Ramblin’ Man Festival, I decided to re-visit one of my favourite shred albums of all time and have another bash at learning ‘Lifeforce’ from his classic ‘Mind’s Eye’ album. So after a couple of hours I hit the point that I’m sure 99% of you have hit when trying to learn another artist’s work, that part of a solo where he just goes nuts. The playing is very fast, the notes appear to be quite random …and I give up! But this time I decided “No, enough is enough, I’m going to nail this!”, …but how?

The classic Vinnie Moore album ‘Mind’s Eye’.

Well rather than just try to copy his notes ‘parrot fashion’ for hours/days on end and build up the speed, (VERY boring, and largely pointless), I gave it some thought, and came up with a bit of a breakthrough for my playing. It went a bit like this;

What scale is he using?

Where does he start from, where does he go to and where does he end up?

What patterns/licks do I like to play if I’m going for speed?

Let’s use these and fit them into this part of the solo!

This is such a simple but great idea, because if you think about it when he recorded it he likely just played what HE finds comes naturally for the fast bits. This is his style, so you should play in your own style, because everyone’s different. OK when playing a cover the main theme/melody needs to resemble the original fairly closely, but for the fast solo bits, ..it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. No one cares. In fact this is the perfect time to add a bit of your own style to the song. Play to your strengths, and maybe actually FINISH the song!!

So what’s your favoured technique if you want to play some fast notes?

Legato notes, sliding positions?

Alternate picking patterns in static positions?

Rapid picking on one string, moving positions?

Hammer-ons and Pull-offs?

Tapping?

It doesn’t really matter what works best for you, we just need to play something resembling this tricky passage using ‘your licks’; starting from the same place – going in the same direction – finishing on the same note. And provided that you can hit the beat and play it with conviction you’ll blow people away just the same.

I have found that this also has the huge bonus of massively improving/expanding my playing and improvising skills, I’ve stretched my brain a bit, discovered new patterns and I’m developing my own style for ‘fast’ bits. If you really listen to most successful guitarists they have a certain pattern/technique/sequence that they usually ‘default’ to when playing fast. So develop your own, maybe a few, that can be adaptable for both straight 4/4 time and a shuffle, learn how to move these sequences around the neck for different keys or modal sounds.

I used an accurate TAB transcription from a magazine put it into Guitar Pro and tweaked these fast sections to licks that better suited my playing. Which is a nice way of making sure that you’re keeping the timing and not straying too far from the orignal. Play along at a slower speed until you can nail it, then increase the tempo until you’re there!

Now I can keep up with the whole song, which is very satisfying and damn fun to play! When I get around to recording a backing track I’ll post a demonstration video to go along with this blog. Here’s how my version (2) varies from the original (1):

(1) (2)

(You should be able to click on the images to get a clearer image).

So you can see that my version looks pretty different, but when played at 152 bpm they really don’t sound that different, …and I actually prefer my version now, which is a good thing I guess!

So dig out those old tunes that you gave up on years ago, give this method a try to get past those road-blocks, and put the pedal to the metal!

The Guitarist’s Solo & Songwriting Companion Book

..and what better way to discover those patterns that best suit your fingers than in our book!

After another very successful Guitar Show in Birmingham back in Feb, (with another 100 books sold!) we’ll follow it up by promoting/selling the book at the newly re-branded London International Guitar Show on Sunday October 29th. Held at Kempton Park racecourse it’s a ‘must-attend’ for all guitar lovers! Check out the exhibitors list and you’ll see why: http://www.guitarshows.co.uk/ARPages/Exhibitors-SoE.html

We have made a few more subtle improvements to the new editions of the book for this upcoming show and we’ll have more free plectrums to give away!

We’re hitting the new year, so now is the perfect time for my first blog post, and what could be more apt than reflecting on your guitar resolutions?

But first, it seems only fitting to tell you a wee bit about myself but don’t worry, I won’t beat around the bush! Personal development is my thing, but guitar is my passion. I’m not a pro; I’m still learning. I came on board as co-author of the Guitarist’s Solo and Songwriting Companion when I saw that Paul, my fellow (and the main!) writer, had the makings of the book I needed. As we got writing and developing it together, we really did find ourselves writing what we both wanted to learn and internalise. I knew the theory, but I struggled to apply it to guitar. Our book was developed as a result, and to this day, remains my first point of reference as I develop my playing and soloing. As a not-there-yet, developing musician, I’ve come to realise there is no clear-cut, all bells whistling (did I mix my metaphors?!) moment when you graduate from “not really a guitarist” to “guitarist”. That moment will be different for everyone. Consequently, I’m interested in the journey of developing as a guitarist, whether as a beginner or a pro. And to blog about it, this may get personal. Possibly even uncomfortably so. Expect posts covering everything from motivation to overcoming blocks; the art of practicing to handling performance anxiety (no, not that!).

So today, we’ve hit the time of year when everyone is thinking about resolutions. It’s that time when we commit to turn dreams into plans; thoughts into action. Have you considered relating any resolutions to your development as a musician?

The thing with guitar, and any instrument for that matter, is that they call it playing an instrument for a reason. Play is about exploring. It’s about fun. It’s driving without programming the sat nav. And I really don’t want to contradict that – I want to make time for play. But the thing is, I really do want to get somewhere. And that’s where the planning has to come into it. I really believe in the power of visualisation – if you can see where you want to go in your mind’s eye, you have so much more chance of getting there than if you just don’t know. It’s like programming the sat nav. You can drive with Google maps running, and it’ll tell you where you are, but it won’t direct you anywhere until you program in a destination.

For me, I want to be in the position where I can play what I hear in my head with ease, so that I can write songs, express myself and improvise freely. And why do I want this – what is it that drives me to play? For me, it’s about wanting to communicate emotions through music. And the beauty is that, by getting clear on what I want and why, I can check in with my practice and ask myself if what I’m working on is really in line with my goals. If it’s not and I go off course, I can recalibrate, Google-map stylee.

So, what do you want? Can you answer these questions with clarity?

– Whose playing most represents where you would like to get to?

– How far are you aiming to develop your speed and technical ability?

– What are you aiming for in terms of performing? Just you, your mates, the local pub, Wembley?

– Do you want to be creative and write or improvise or would you rather stick to covers?

And what about your why?

– Why is it that you wanted to play guitar in the first place?

– What drives you to keep playing now?

By taking some time to reflect on what matters to you now, you’ll reap the rewards in keeping on track and practicing with purpose in the new year. Now is your chance – make your resolutions count!

So, I’ve been into the studio to record a few songs that I’ve had laying around for years, once the book was finished I decided that it was time to get these songs finished too.

The book was very useful in getting these songs over the finish line. When you have songs hanging around for years and a memory as bad as mine, you need some way of getting back up to speed with them quickly when you do eventually get some time to play them. By writing down the chord progressions, target notes and modes on one of the Cheat Sheets from the book I was able to come up with some interesting stuff for these songs quite quickly when it was required.

I primarily used the F and C major scales for the outro solo which gave me a minor sound when played over the chords in that progression, with a bit of Phrygian and Dorian mixed in. I also threw in the odd C# here and there when playing over a D chord as this sounded good to me (maj7th). I used Dm pentatonic scale patterns as they sounded good (as always!), especially for the first solo and bits in the middle. By using the scale patterns laid out on the Cheat Sheet, even sticking to a simple minor pentatonic scale, I was still able to travel all over the neck and find some nice finger patterns to suit the sort of lick that I wanted to hear.

As usual we ended up recording the backing tracks at a much faster tempo than I had planned, which always makes adding my carefully constructed solo ‘interesting’! So the outro solo had to be recorded at home, once I’d had time to get the licks up to speed… That always seems to happen with us, it must be the nervous excitement of being in the studio makes us all play faster. One reason could be that I’ve always hated recording to a click track, I think that takes away a lot of the human expression in a song, I like a rock song to speed up a bit here and there, where needed, to add some dynamics. It’s worth noting this if you are planning to record a tricky/fast solo over a song, even if it’s a few bpm faster than you’re used to then you’ll be in trouble when:

You’ve never played those licks that fast before

Your hands are clammy/cold/sweaty* (*delete as applicable)

Everyone’s watching

You’re against the clock

Your tone/gain is not what you’re used to

Etc… etc…

In one song I changed one fast solo lick to a slower version because it sounded rushed and the end result actually sounds way better and much more musical.

The next few songs that I plan to record to finish the album will include a very fast hard-rock instrumental, so if that comes out too fast them I’m going to be in trouble!

I write this as I am preparing to enter the studio for a few days to record some songs that I have written with some friends of mine. The other musicians that I am playing with are well known for nailing their parts in one or two takes, so this makes me a bit nervous! How do you have fun, be creative and play to your full potential under the pressure of time constraints and getting it done in just a few takes, with everyone else watching/listening? It’s very different from banging out a demo in your back room over the course of a few weeks!

Here are some things that I try to do to give myself the best possible chance of having a successful recording session and controlling my stress levels…

All guitarists love the thought of playing their guitars, this drives me constantly, but is it always what you’d hoped it would be once you’ve put it down again – after playing the pentatonic scale patterns again, for the millionth time?!

All musicians want to improve, the steepness of our learning curves may vary but the trajectory is always UP! The good news is that yes, practice really does work! If you are struggling with a guitar lick and you play it every day for a week, it will be better in a week’s time.